Revisiting fiscal sustainability: panel cointegration and structural breaks in OECD countries

Antonio Afonso and Joao Jalles

No 2012/29, Working Papers Department of Economics from ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa

Abstract: We assess the sustainability of public finances in OECD countries, over the period 1970-2010, using unit root and cointegration analysis, both country and panel based, controlling for endogenous breaks. Results notably show: lack of cointegration – absence of sustainability – between government revenues and expenditures for most countries (except for Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, and UK); improvements of the primary balance after past worsening in debt ratios for Australia, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands and the UK; Granger causality from government debt to the primary balance for 12 countries (suggesting the existence of Ricardian regimes). Overall, fiscal policy has been less sustainable for several countries, and panel data results corroborate the time-series findings. JEL Classification: C32, E62, H62, H63

Keywords: debt; primary balance; fiscal regimes; stationarity; breaks; causality; panel cointegration; FMOLS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

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Working Paper: Revisiting fiscal sustainability: panel cointegration and structural breaks in OECD countries (2012)
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